I am 16 and want to get into bodybuilding. I work out at my school gym. I get plenty of cardio as I am active in football and wrestling. I also have gym three days a week. What are some things I can do to help bodybuilld? Can you build me a plan. I am 5'7" and weigh about 175 pounds.

Shadowschmadow

02-02-2012 12:43 PM

Eat big and lift big.

Work on building a solid strength base with a beginner strength training program. If your program doesn't include (barbell) squats, bench, deadlifts, rows/cleans and OHP... It ain't worth a shit. Learn the barbell compound movements - perfect your form - and after you've made some solid progression, choose a routine that is more oriented for bodybuilding. Considering progression is subjective, check back with us when you're doing squats with your body-weight for sets and we can assess where to go from there.

All that volume needed for hypertrophy won't mean shit if you're not moving some weight in the process. Good luck and train hard.

MikeM

02-04-2012 03:01 AM

Not sure what you are asking here. Do you wish to compete in a body building meet in the next year or two? Are you building strength/body so you can compete in your 20's? Do you just want to look buff on the beach? Etc. All of those are valid goals, don't get me wrong, I've been hoping for a buff body for the beach since I was 16 and it hasn't happened yet, but there's always hope for next year! :)

Seriously, if you want to get big muscles and have them be obvious on your body you need to lift big but you also need to eat with some serious discipline. Diet is easily as important as weight training.

I'm 5' 7 and a 1/2" and about 192 so I can relate to your size (and if I ever hit 175 again, I'll be the happiest camper ever!).

But anyway, Sounds like you are about the right weight for your size, so you just need to tighten it up. Depending on your bone structure and body fat, you are close to your ideal weight anyway. And you are clearly just starting out on your iron journey.

So, you need some basic compound movements as Shadow described, and I'd suggest a 5x5 scheme to get you going as it helped me when I started out (admittedly about 2 decades older, shudder :)), but with some biceps and calves thrown in too if you want to compete.

There's a Steve Reeves routine floating around somewhere on this site that would be perfect, but if you want my suggestions, here goes.

Monday - Squats ramping up to max set of 5 (the most weight you can do for 5 reps), then Bench to a max 5, Rows to max 5, Stiff DL to a max 10, and calves to a max 10
Wednesday - OHP to a max 5, Squats to a 80% max 5, Chinups 5x max, RDL 3x 5, DB or BB curls 3x 10, Pushups to failure
Friday - Hang cleans up to 3x3 across, Squat to 90% max of 5, Bench to 90%max of 5, Rows to 90% max of 5, Deadlift to max of 5.

T-Thurs, Abs (5x 12) and some cardio

There's tons of good programs out there, but that helped me get started.

However, define your goals specifically short term and long term, then see what's out there, try some of it and keep what works. Switch to something else as soon as it stops working. Come back around to it when whatever you switched to stops working.